1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of data processing systems. More particularly, this invention relates to data processing systems having multiple instruction sets and the way in which such multiple instruction sets may be encoded.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is known to provide data processing systems with multiple instruction sets. An example of such data processing systems are processor cores produced by ARM Limited of Cambridge, England which support both the ARM and Thumb instruction sets. The ARM instruction set is a 32-bit instruction set and the Thumb instruction set is a 16-bit instruction set. Whilst data processing systems supporting multiple instruction sets allow an advantageous degree of flexibility in the way which program operations may be represented and can yield advantages such as improved code density, there is typically an increase in the amount of hardware needed to support the multiple instruction sets.